The bits of stuff that fall in the cracks between Life, Music and outrageous fortune.		  
 
 
 
February
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*Titus Groan considers that one day he'll be a burger..		 Life goes on..
26.2.11 - As a hopeful post script to the Christchurch tragedy, Trevor Courtney sent me this pic of the first of their Red Devon progeny, which now makes the herd two. I've asked Trev if it has a name* and I'll let you know.
Incidentally, I was reading a book on my trip that I'd like to recommend to fellow 60 + (blokes mainly I'd reckon).
It's called Nothing to be Frightened of.. written by well-known English author, Julian Barnes. (Well-known to you perhaps, but I'd not read anything by him before).
As it increasingly occurs to our age group that we are not actually immortal, this is a guide through most of the arguments against dying that you'll think of plus a few more from extremely erudite people that are in fact dead.
 
My NZ trip

1) The Brittendens treat the Rudd to a night out 2) New Age farmers Trevor Courtney and Lyndsay Hammond

3) For some reason I found the the muted tones of Sumner beach induced a melancholic mood..
Who's a black sheep?
4) Morning tea with the aunts, Bev and Joyce 5) The black sheep of the family, my dad David (mouse over pic)

6) My beautiful mum, Lois, resigns herself to being snapped 7) Jeff Smith updates me re' the Chants' project

8) The new reality - fat-arse seats at Auckland airport

Missed by that much..
24.2.11 - My escape from the recent Christchurch earthquake was a little closer than my Twin Towers near miss. (30 years) Tony Brittenden took me on a tour of the CBD on my arrival on Friday 11th and lamented the loss of the Lone Star Café, but of course the damage from the September earthquake pales by comparison with Tuesday's effort and all the pics I took are redundant
Anyway, Jan B. met us at St Andrews and we adjourned to Tiffany's, an old established restaurant in Oxford Tce (pic 1) which I had recommended unseen on a convoluted whim. It was an odd night, but we had fun nonetheless.
On Saturday Tony and I trekked out to Eyrewell Forest near Oxford to visit Chants' drummer Trevor Courtney and

his wife, Lyndsay Hammond. (pic 2) Trev and Lyndsay have had an epiphany and have forsaken music for the allure of farming their 13 acre property. Trevor gave us a guided tour and outlined his bio-diverse approach to farming, in which he's guided by the teachings of Rudolph Steiner. Very interesting and I shall be fascinated to see how things are going for them in a couple of years.
On Sunday I visited my in-laws, Peter and Teri Burns' in North Brighton. They've been accommodating their daughter Karine's family since the September 'quake which means the house is always busy - things must be even more difficult for them now - after which I drove down to Sumner (pic 3) and mooched about disconsolately. I put my mood down to the typically muted greys, greens and browns of the scenery, but perhaps I'd picked up some sense of apprehension in the air.
As usual I was sad to leave my generous hosts the Brittendens, but on Monday Jan dropped me off at Christchurch airport to fly up to Auckland equipped with quantities of her Christmas cake and biscuits. Christchurch was drizzly and cool when I left, but it was steamy and hot when I arrived at Auckland airport. Mum had sorted out a hire car for me and soon we were back in Pakuranga having cups of tea and Jan's Christmas cake, followed by an hour or so successfully re-installing a recalcitrant Norton anti-virus program on mum's PC. I was quite pleased with myself for my efforts and I think mum was not a little surprised.
The next day I popped over to Remuera for morning tea with two of the aunts (pic 4) before following my nose down Highway 1 to Rotorua where my dad David lives.
I was humbled to discover that David (pic 5) had declined to go the funeral of one of his mates that day so as to be on hand when I arrived, and over a G&T he read me the eulogy he'd written to be read out in his absence. A lot of his friends have died lately, which is one of the reasons I thought I should take the opportunity to check up on his well-being and support network. In the event I was satisfied that he's in good spirits, although he suffers from just the sort of health concerns you might expect from an 86 year old bloke.
On Wednesday night I was back in Auckland again and mum and I had an evening out with Jeremy and Susie Templer at Jeremy's favoured haunt, the Belgian Beer Café in Mission Bay where I consumed 40,000 green-lipped mussels - the really big ones. It was only later I remembered that Jeff Smith, whom I was meeting the next day, had asked me if I liked seafood paella and I thought perhaps I should've gone for something less seafoody.
Jeff Smith (pic 7) (Deep Animation) lives and works in Kaukapakapa (Ko-cuppa-cuppa) not twenty minutes from Audrey Hay, the third of my Auckland aunts, so I managed to pay her an overdue visit - she loves her music and always seems to be OS at some classical festival or other whenever I'm in town.
Jeff's place is idyllically situated in the bush within sight of the statue of the Buddha at the local Buddhist Temple. John Baker was supposed to be coming as well, but neither of us were too surprised that he didn't make it. I'd brought a bottle of pinot noir with me but Jeff insisted we knock over his bottle of bubbly as he started cooking the paella. A couple of hours later, a surfeit of mussels the previous night notwithstanding, I was ready to eat and the paella was delicious. Then I crunched on something, possibly a randomly ironic bit of mussel shell, and realised I'd broken a molar clean in half and it was cutting into my tongue making talking quite problematic.
Fortunately, Jeff did most of the talking from then on anyway and showed me a lot of the raw material they're assembling into, well, they're not quite sure what that is yet. All they know is that it has to be completed by April to be submitted in time for the NZ Film Festival. There's a lot of live footage of the Chants from 2007 and 2010 plus interviews with the Stagedoor crowd, but I get the feeling the doco (if that's what it is) will be largely about John Baker and his 'magnificent obsession', and that's fitting enough as it was John's enthusiasm and energy that revived interest in the incipient Kiwi music scene in the first place.
I took mum out to lunch the next day (pic 6) before she dropped me off at the airport to head back home. A pesky detail: I suppose it's all the good weather they've been having, (Auckland has had a warmer summer than has Melbourne) but I was astonished that the local dozy flies are tolerated to the extent they are - nobody seems to have cottoned on to fly screens. Could be an opening for a fly-screen entrepreneur perhaps..
Flies aside, I had a lovely trip catching up with friends and rel's. Maybe I'll do it again next year..
 

1) Rosemary's granddaughter Tilley is Rosemary's joey 2) Chris is arrested by Sheriff Bill		 The weekend
7.2.11 - I'm getting into the habit of having Chris to stay for the weekend now that I have a room available for him - the old place in Camberwell had deteriorated to the point that there was only one habitable bedroom. He's clearly enjoying the experience as am I - even when we have to get up at 6.15am as we did on
Sunday to go up to Strathewen to atttend the second anniversary of the 2009 fires. It was held at the newly built pavilion on the old oval and there were a couple of hundred Strathewenites there to mark the occasion. The names of the perished were heart-wrenchingly read out and there were a couple of speeches and a few songs - and then the formal part of proceedings was over. Bill's songs were played as background music before and after the ceremony underlining his identity as a valued member of the Strathewen community. I'm proud of the man..
 
 
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